Confucius doesn`t mean cute

Xia Da, an up-and-coming Chinese comics artist, has suddenly found herself famous in Japan. It's not for the reasons she wanted, though.

Xia, one of Chinese comics' biggest young stars and an admirer of Japanese manga (comic books) since her childhood, hoped to be recognized overseas for her bold style and serious topics. But instead, she found legions of drooling fanboys ogling pictures of her in a schoolgirl costume.

The photos show Xia, 29, without any make-up and wearing a student's outfit, a look always guaranteed to stir up the libidos of Japanese comics fans, among whom the loli style, showing young girls, is disturbingly popular. They describe her as being as pretty as any of her child-like characters. The pictures spread rapidly on the Japanese Internet since first being published in March, and have earned her the name of "China's cutest young cartoonist."

A colleague of Xia's said, "A photographer friend of Xia's took these for fun a year ago, and put them on her blog. Then they were picked up by the editor of an online game, who photoshopped the pictures into a promotion for the game."

"Our studio had words with them and stopped that, but when Xia's work started being published in Japanese magazines, people wanted to know what she looked like. Then somebody found the pictures online and things spread from there, starting in Japan and now back in Chinese forums."

Manga maniac

Xia has been a fan of comic books since she was a schoolgirl. Her first work, Chengzhang(Growing Up), was published when she was in high school, running in the popular magazine Beijing Cartoon. While studying design in a college in Hunan Province, her comic strip Siyuewuyu (April Story) was published in Beijing.

Inspired by these successes and her love of comics, Xia turned down the prospect of a job in her Hunan hometown after graduation and moved to Beijing to become a professional comics artist. There she became part of a group of young artists and joined a comic book studio, Summerzoo.

Her continuing work in Beijing Cartoon gathered her more fans, especially the stripMidelande Chenxing (Midland Stars). Another work, Luoxuewusheng (Silent Falling Snow) was adapted for TV.

Confucius Didn't Say

After the Summerzoo studio moved to Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province in 2006, Xia moved with them. There her career reached new peaks with Zibuyu (Confucius Didn't Say), the story of a nine year old girl moving to a mountain with her parents. The strip, told from a child's perspective, illustrates the unseen beauty of the world. It won first prize at the Golden Dragon awards in 2008, an award founded in 2004 to encourage new talent in China.

Judges for the competition included Shigeki Yukio, chief editor of one of the biggest publishing houses in Japan, and well-known cartoonist Matsui Eimoto. They recommended her work to Ultra Jump, one of Japan's biggest comics magazines, where it was published in February 2009. Zibuyu went on to become the first original Chinese comic to be published in the Japanese market.

Despite this success, it's been the innocent schoolgirl photos that have really catapulted Xia to fame. Yao Feila, a Chinese artist who helped publish Zibuyu, said in an interview with Shenzhen Economic Daily that they'd been no plan to use the photos for publicity, but that if it helped the comic reach a greater audience, it was a gift.

Serious about art

But her overnight fame has left Xia embarrassed and even angry. "I have always dreamed of producing good work as an artist, and I have been paid a lot for that end. I have devoted over 10 hours a day to drawing and you can't imagine how many times my comics were refused by publishing houses and how many setbacks I have suffered. But now I've become famous not because of my work, but because of my appearance. I really felt embarrassed," she said.

In Xia's blog on blog.com, she remarked fiercely "Those photos were just something done for fun, not promotional shots. I beg all of you to stop spreading those photos and don't call me a 'Beautiful young girl' or a 'Lolita', which only makes me feel ashamed."

"No one has done this deliberately. But it has really caused me a lot of trouble. I thank those who have praised that I am pretty. But I hope people pay more attention to my work, show me more respect and give me a quiet space to do my job," Xia explained.

Xia hopes that her new work, Gesila Bushuohua (Godzilla Doesn't Talk) will win readers for its quality, not her looks. "It comes out in April. It's autobiographical from when I was 14. I want to share with all girls this beautiful and lonely time we have when we are young."

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